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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27596282">i hope this doesn’t freak you out.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards'>clickingkeyboards</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Autistic!Bertie [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ableism, Autistic!Bertie Wells, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Verbal, Understanding</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 00:15:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,052</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27596282</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/clickingkeyboards/pseuds/clickingkeyboards</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Are you alright?”</i>
</p><p> </p><p>Cambridge is a new situation and Bertie can reinvent himself, choose to mask less and stim more. However, it is difficult to be himself when that person gets <i>those</i> looks.</p><p>(Autistic!Bertie because I say so)</p><p> </p><p>  <i>“Perfectly.”</i></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Autistic!Bertie [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017454</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>i hope this doesn’t freak you out.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Excuse me, I think that you dropped this.”</p><p>As he turned, Bertie’s heart dropped into the pit of his stomach. The handsome young man who had taken up residence in front of him during lectures was standing there with an awkward look on his face, offering out a small red poetry book with the corner of one page torn out.</p><p>There was a shock that lodged down in his wrists and made it an uncomfortable effort not to flap his hands, set upon him the moment that he saw the book. It was <em> Stephen’s </em> book, stolen evidence, and it was in the hands of somebody who didn’t know the meaning that it held. “That’s not yours,” is what made it out of his mouth.</p><p>“I know. I’m... giving it back to you,” he said, offering it out again with apprehension.</p><p>“Oh. Thank— thank— thank you.” In a fluster, he snatched it back. “Sorry.”</p><p>“No problem.” Despite what Bertie would consider an absolutely terrible and awkward and <em> autistic </em> first meeting, he didn’t seem fazed. He checked the time on his phone screen and held out his hand. “Harold Mukherjee.”</p><p>“Oh, I’m Bertie Wells.” He had perfected his formal handshake over the summer and it was nice to not have his incompetence at the movement questioned. “It’s a pleasure.”</p><p>The boy — Harold — grinned. “A delight, Mister Wells. Are you alright?”</p><p>Bertie tugged at the sleeve of his jacket, wondering dimly how many other ways the interaction could go wrong; it had been ages since somebody had unknowingly targeted a question at his sensory issues and he felt lost. “Perfectly, don’t worry yourself.”</p><p>“I won’t.”</p><p>Bertie had noticed when their lectures started that he dressed a little differently to everybody else, coats and sweaters and slightly crinkled shirts for weight and pressure against casual t-shirts bearing bright slogans. It seemed to him that Harold was eyeing the way that he dressed, and he was about to make excuses when the other boy spoke again. “If you don’t mind— you seem like the sort of scholar that I’d read about in books.” For such an unassuming figure, he was certainly an odd sort of worldly, and awkward at the same time. “Could I, um— perhaps… sit with you tomorrow, in our lecture?”</p><p>Frowning at the rather flustered young man, he said, “You’re rather the scholarly type yourself, you know. Do consider me charmed.”</p><p>“Is that a yes?” Harold called out as Bertie reached the door.</p><p>“Yes.”</p>
<hr/><p>“What are you doing sitting outside?” Alfred asked, peering out of Staircase Nine to see Bertie sitting on the single step leading up to the door, mindless of the rain. “It’s — what do you Brits say? — pissing it down out here.”</p><p>“It’s only drizzling,” he replied with a slightly amused look on his face, turning to look at Alfred. “Am I… not supposed to sit out here?”</p><p>“I mean, there’s no rule against it, it’s just a bit weird.” He set down his raincoat on the step and sat down beside him. “What’s up?”</p><p>Bertie shrugged. “I suppose that I need to explain now?” There was a slightly mischievous look on his face, as if the way that Alfred was treating him both amused and offended him. “I wanted to think. And… the rain intrigued me. I had to come here, to stare.”</p><p>“Haven’t you got an essay to write?” he asked, feeling a little out of his depth. There were no <em> rules </em> when talking to Bertie Wells, who defied that particularly English thing that he had been told the moment that he arrived in the country: when somebody asks how you are, you always answer ‘good’. Bertie didn’t do that, he actually answered the damn question in the sensible and normal way, and that was the first in a list of peculiarities that made him both more and less easy to talk to. </p><p>There was a particular and odd look on his face when he shrugged again. “What of it?”</p><p>“Nothing. Just…” With a sigh, he said what he had been dancing around. “Why are you out here?”</p><p>“I’m autistic and the rain feels nice.” He turned to Alfred and the look on his face was faintly amused yet again. “If you make any reference to Sheldon Cooper, I will punch you. Just a warning.”</p><p>Alfred chuckled. “Got it, Wells.” After a comfortable pause, he said, “So… Mukherjee’s handsome, isn’t he?”</p><p>“You don’t like guys,” Bertie replied, raising his eyebrows.</p><p>“No, but I have eyes,” he said, keeping his tone as serious as he possibly could. “Come on, what’s up with you two sitting together in lectures?”</p><p>“He’s nice. And pretty. And you—” He jabbed Alfred’s shoulder with his finger. “—are not going to meddle.”</p><p>Sensing that he’d been put in his place, Alfred laughed and stood up, picking up his coat. “I’ve got an essay that I’ve been putting off for a week, so I probably ought to do that. You ought to come in if it rains any harder, you know.”</p><p>“Will do, Alfred.”</p>
<hr/><p>“Hey,” Harold whispered as Bertie sat down in his usual seat. “I missed you yesterday.”</p><p>When Bertie looked up, Harold’s eyes were so stunningly honest that he had to look away. There was a reason that eyes were called the windows to the soul: they were a well of emotions too overwhelming to stare at for too long.</p><p>“I took some notes for you. I didn’t highlight them, though. I know how you hate it.”</p><p>Though looking down as he did so, he gave Harold a confused look.</p><p>Shrugging, he looked away bashfully and said, “The last time I took notes for you, I highlighted them. I noticed that you wrote up your own version without highlights, and I thought I’d save you the trouble.”</p><p>It was hard to communicate ‘thank you’ without words, so he screwed up his eyes and tried to look exaggeratedly pleased. Harold laughed, and then called out, “Sorry, Professor!” in response to the answering glare.</p><p>After the attention had left their corner of the lecture hall, he turned again and whispered, “Not talking today?”</p><p>Relieved, he nodded.</p><p>“Got it. Hey—” He held out a small pack of sticky notes. “Write down any questions you have. I’ll ask them for you.”</p>
<hr/><p>“The thrill of being sent down adds to it,” Bertie insisted to Harold, who was clinging to the bricks beside him, breathing hard with his hair awry. “Hey, try this handhold.”</p><p>“Bit far,” he grunted, though he obliged and reached over. The two of them were half-over a jutting ledge wrapping around the building, Bertie beside a drainpipe that he had one arm wrapped around and Harold suspended by nothing other than his own hands and feet above a balcony. The others were already on the roof, exclaiming quietly at the sights around them. </p><p>Just as his fingers grazed the brick that Bertie had pointed out, one of his feet slipped and he gasped, releasing his grip and dropping like a stone, cracking his chin on the ornate partition and vanishing from Bertie’s sight. “HAROLD!”</p><p>“I’m good!” came his voice from too far below to be comfortable. “I’ve skinned my palm, though. Anyone got a bandage?”</p><p>“I have!” Donald replied, rushing to the drainpipe. “Oi, Bertie, move over.”</p><p>He went to shift his grip from the drainpipe and apologise but neither came naturally. His voice had vanished from his throat and his arm was locked in place.</p><p>“Bertie!” Chummy called down from above. “You idiot, let him past. Stop fucking around.”</p><p>“Hey, let up,” Alfred scolded the pair of them. “Bertie, let go of the drainpipe so that Donald can get past. He needs to get to Harold.”</p><p>Taking a heaving breath, Bertie forced himself to move away, clinging to the building and feeling his chest move against the bricks as Donald scrambled down past him, helping a laughing and groaning Harold to his feet. He had landed on the balcony below him and, after bandaging his hand, he followed Donald up to the roof.</p><p>He paused beside Bertie, reaching out a hand to put on his shoulder. “Hey, you. I’m okay. That must have been a fright to see, though.”</p><p>Nodding, Bertie turned to look up at the roof, three pale faces peering over at them.</p><p>“Come on.”</p><p>Though he had no idea how he managed it, he was up on the roof after Harold, taking in how Cambridge was spread out around them, the lights twinkling in the windows and the stars mapping out across the sky.</p><p>Chummy was giving him a pointed look, the same one that he gave Donald before a particularly nasty prank. Even though Bertie had the conscious decision to steer clear of him for the rest of the night, that didn’t stop him hearing a muffled comment that he couldn’t quite decipher, followed by Alfred saying, “I will push you off this <em> fucking </em> building, asshole. In fact, I’m going to take a stab at climbing that tower before I’m tempted to.”</p><p>Alfred’s response suddenly enabled him to work out what Chummy had said, indecipherable whispers taking the cruel and scarring shape of the words, “Fucking freak.”</p>
<hr/><p>“It’s raining.”</p><p>Alfred gave him what could only be described as a sideways look. “Yes? Welcome to your own country, Wells.”</p><p>“I don’t like it.” Frustrated at the lack of articulation, Bertie tugged at his curls and said, “Rain makes me uncomfortable, when it’s pouring and you can’t see the next lamppost and the ground is on its way to flooding.”</p><p>“Hm.” After a moment of consideration, Alfred said, “Sensory?”</p><p>“Fallingford.”</p><p>“Ah.”</p><p>Bertie leant up against the open door. “I can’t go out in that.”</p><p>Making a frustrated noise, Alfred asked, “I suppose this isn’t up for debate?”</p><p>When he shook his head, Alfred pinched the bridge of his nose and said, “Fine. Look— I’m not going to stay behind but… look, just call me if you need help, alright?”</p><p>Trying was half of the thing, he supposed as Alfred Cheng legged it across the quad to the porters’ door. A pity that Alfred couldn’t finesse the other half.</p><p> </p><p><em> Prof is boring me out of my mind, </em> was the first text. <em> I think I’m just gonna die. </em></p><p>Surprised, Bertie set aside his laptop — rereading old emails, as usual — to stare at his phone. What was Alfred doing?</p><p>
  <em> Mukherjee is doing a hilarious Gorbachev impression from across the room. Hang on, I’ll see if I can sneak a video. </em>
</p><p>After that, there was a text almost every minute, a complaint or a reiteration or a bored selfie or a photo of a misspelling on the powerpoint. He could hardly put down his phone for laughter as he was virtually fed the best parts of the lecture material, all of the actual content seemingly filtered out for irritation and whining.</p><p>When a furious Alfred burst back into Staircase Nine, with a grinning Amanda Price and sparkling Harold Mukherjee in tow, Bertie had almost forgotten about the endearments cast across his laptop screen.</p><p>Just as they were about to climb the stairs to Alfred’s room, Bertie realised. “Bastard,” he said to Alfred, who laughed. “You distracted me!”</p><p>“Pleasure,” he said.</p><p>Perhaps Alfred could be accommodating in his own way.</p>
<hr/><p>“Are you autistic?”</p><p>Bertie looked up from here he was concentrating on pressing his cheesecake into an interestingly-coloured paste with his fork. Amanda’s eyes were very bright, her cheeks very red, and her words very pointed. Everything was piercing and he closed his eyes. Lips pressed together, he nodded.</p><p>“Is that why you can’t do your essays?”</p><p>He nodded. “I’m not lazy. Or a bad student. I just…”</p><p>“I read about a thing called executive dysfunction. Is it that?” she asked. Her voice was kind, and she touched the back of his hand. </p><p>Waving his fork in the air, he said, “Yeah, that’s the word.”</p><p>“I can help you revise, if you want. We can write some essays together, work out how it works for you.”</p><p>“Yeah.” Nodding until he felt quite dizzy and some more, he said, “That sounds good.”</p><p>When he opened his eyes again, the world was subdued to a bearable level but Amanda was still so very <em> there </em>in front of him, and she was pink-cheeked and smiling. “You’re a funny thing, Bertie. It’s great.”</p>
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